COLLEGE AREA  Fifty years ago this spring, President John F. Kennedy gave a memorable commencement speech at what was then San Diego State College several months before he was assasinated.

Students, faculty and alumni commemorated the visit Tuesday as student leaders delivered his speech and a faculty member put his remarks and the event in historical context.

Kennedy was the first president to visit what has grown into San Diego State University. At the time, Kennedy also accepted an honorary doctorate, the first given by the California State University system.

The event took place near Viejas Arena on the site of the former Aztec Bowl, where Kennedy spoke at length about education. Remnants of the stands where some of the 30,000 people sat and listened to his speech on June 6, 1963, are still visible today.

SDSU President Elliot Hirshman opened the proceedings Tuesday by speaking of the significance of the president’s visit, which was prompted by a request from then-faculty member Henry Janssen and Robert Weir, the head of the student body.

“Today, as we look ahead, envisioning another 50 years, we find ourselves in another pivotal moment in public higher education,” Hirshman said. “But President Kennedy’s vision of providing a transformational education for all our students is as relevant today as it was 50 years ago.”

Following Hirshman’s remarks, anthropology department chair Seth Mallios, who recently finished writing a book detailing the history of the campus, delivered a historical perspective on Kennedy’s commencement speech.

“It was an incredibly volatile time for the nation, only months out of the Cuban missile crisis,” Mallios said. “He integrated the University of Alabama, the civil rights movement was in its height, and he would introduce legislation a week after. And six months later, he would be assassinated.”

Associated Students President Rob O’Keefe, Executive Vice President Channelle McNutt and Vice President of External Affairs Tom Rivera delivered Kennedy’s entire speech to the audience. From this speech, an iconic quote would emerge that would seem to define the president’s desire to increase the nation’s educational standards.

“No free society can possibly be sustained, unless it has an educated citizenry whose qualities of mind and heart permit it to take part in the complicated and increasingly sophisticated decisions that pour not only upon the president and upon the Congress, but upon all the citizens who exercise the ultimate power,” Kennedy said in his speech, a passage quoted by both O’Keefe and Hirshman.

Following the speeches Tuesday, a new plaque commemorating the president’s visit was unveiled and will be placed at the northern most area of the former Aztec Bowl, where Kennedy’s helicopter departed. The original plaque was stolen in 2008 and never found.